LA – Suisman Urban Design

First Street Next

Following the successful completion of its master plan study for First Street in downtown Los Angeles and Boyle Heights, Suisman Urban Design and its partners Rios Clementi Hale Studios and Campbell & Campbell are poised to begin the next stage of the project in early 2007. The next phase will involve implementation of certain pieces of the master plan, and the development of new city standards to ensure design compliance over the long term. Project Restore, the non-profit arm of the City of Los Angeles which led the renovation of City Hall, is again leading this important revitalization effort. Funding participants include the Federal government through the office of Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard; MTA; and the Community Redevelopment Agency, Planning Department and Transportation Department of the City of Los Angeles.

Suisman discusses New Latino Urbanism at Cal State LA

Formed by Suisman’s fifteen years research on Mexican, Latin American urbanism; Los Angeles area a lab for combining tradition and innovation.

Doug Suisman joined Landscape Architect Mia Lehrer to discuss design directions for “Latino New Urbanism” at a well attended conference on the campus of Cal State Los Angeles, organized by the Transportation and Land Use Coaltion. Suisman spoke of his many years of studying urban form and public spaces in Mexico, and his hopes that aspects of Latin America’s urban vitality could be applied in Los Angeles.

Suisman suggested that the “New Urbanism” has derived primarily from Anglo prototypes, and that instead of focusing on a Latino version of New Urbanism, Los Angeles would do well to focus on a new version of Latino Urbanism, the rich tradition of plazas, parks and streets which can be found in cities from Santiago de Chile to Guadalajara.

“Plaza, Parque, Calle” article by Doug Suisman.

First Street Master Plan in Downtown Los Angeles

Project Restore announced that the team of Suisman • Campbell • Rios has been selected to develop the conceptual master plan for downtown Los Angeles’s First Street. The 2.4 mile corridor links Disney Concert Hall on Bunker Hill to Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights. The street runs by Los Angeles City Hall, which was renovated by Project Restore, and across the Los Angeles River on the historic First Street Bridge. More than $2.4 billion is currently being reinvested along the corridor, from the Grand Avenue Project and the new Caltrans Headquarters to the East Side light rail project. Numerous mixed-use housing developments are also underway. The team, a joint venture of Suisman Urban Design, Campbell & Campbell, and Rios Clementi Hale Studios, will develop a detailed streetscape plan, as well as development, programming, marketing, and maintenance strategies for the street.

Transit-oriented development in California

Doug Suisman joined development and transit specialists on a panel to discuss transit-oriented mixed-use development in California. On the panel, part of a conference organized by the California Studies Association and held at Loyola Marymount University, Suisman raised the question of whether Bus Rapid Transit could catalyze transit-oriented development as well as light rail projects. He presented some of the firm’s work on L.A.’s Metro Rapid system, and on the proposed bus transit center and associated town redevelopment in Marina, California.